Live data from Hacker News

Before the Iron Age, Most Iron Came from Space

atlasobscura.com

1–10 of 34 posts

Re: Before the Iron Age, Most Iron Came from Space

#5
post #2

The metal of the gods, sent down from the heavens.

“And We also sent down iron in which there lies great force and which has many uses for mankind…” (Quran 57:25) published in a book 1400 years old

Which in turn is over 1,200 years after a meteorite fall was described in the chronicle Ch'un-Ch'iu, traditionally considered to have been written by Confucius (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1994Metic..29..864Y ).

Or about nearly 2,000 years after "a new term for iron [was] developed [in Egyptian] which literally translates as ‘iron from the sky’." (http://www.ironfromthesky.org/?page_id=2 )

Re: Before the Iron Age, Most Iron Came from Space

#6

  "these coveted, precocious artifacts"
  should be
  "these coveted, precious artifacts"
There was a lot of disbelief in this article about our ancestors using metal from meteorites. Iron from meteorites has been used for at 6,000 years.

  Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys.
  It began far back in prehistory. The earliest surviving iron
  artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made
  from meteoritic iron-nickel.[1]

  [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrous_metallurgy

Re: Before the Iron Age, Most Iron Came from Space

#7

"these coveted, precocious artifacts" should be "these coveted, precious artifacts" There was a lot of disbelief in this article about our ancestors using metal from meteorites. Iron from meteorites has been used for at 6,000 years. Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys. It began far back in prehistory. The earliest surviving iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made from me…

"Precocious" means roughly "premature", or "appearing before its time". So the word is used correctly here to talk about Iron artifacts appearing before they 'should' in the Iron Age.

Re: Before the Iron Age, Most Iron Came from Space

#8

"these coveted, precocious artifacts" should be "these coveted, precious artifacts" There was a lot of disbelief in this article about our ancestors using metal from meteorites. Iron from meteorites has been used for at 6,000 years. Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys. It began far back in prehistory. The earliest surviving iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made from me…

"Precocious" means roughly "premature", or "appearing before its time". So the word is used correctly here to talk about Iron artifacts appearing before they 'should' in the Iron Age.

You are indeed a close, careful reader. Kudos!

Re: Before the Iron Age, Most Iron Came from Space

#9

"these coveted, precocious artifacts" should be "these coveted, precious artifacts" There was a lot of disbelief in this article about our ancestors using metal from meteorites. Iron from meteorites has been used for at 6,000 years. Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys. It began far back in prehistory. The earliest surviving iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made from me…

"Precocious" means roughly "premature", or "appearing before its time". So the word is used correctly here to talk about Iron artifacts appearing before they 'should' in the Iron Age.

Ah. I see how that was used. It was another nod to the disbelief of people's knowledge prior to the iron age. Thank you.

Re: Before the Iron Age, Most Iron Came from Space

#10
I'm a bit confused. The article says that archaeologists thought that pre-Iron Age iron use came from isolated early development of iron ore smelting, because archaeologists did not believe Bronze Age people understood that meteorites were rocks that fell from the sky.

So what? Iron meteorites differ from "normal" Earth rocks in several ways visually and they are denser [1]. All a Bonze Age group would need to learn is that rocks that look a certain way and weight a lot are good places to find iron. They don't need to know that they fell from the sky.

[1] https://geology.com/meteorites/meteorite-identification.shtm...

Post reply on HN